1. The Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system and method for determining the position of a satellite relative to time.
2. The Background Art
Satellite technology has revolutionized the modern world and provided numerous benefits to society in commerce and science. With additional advancements in technology, society's dependence on satellite technology grows. An efficient and well maintained satellite network is essential to the advancement of modern society.
A necessity of satellite technology is the ability to determine the position of a given satellite at particular times. This is critical to maintain accurate positions data on thousands of satellites in orbit. Furthermore, telecommunication and telemetry systems require precise knowledge of satellite positions in order to enable transmissions. Time-motion relationships are required in order to determine intercept or rendezvous orbits for satellites and other spacecraft.
Systems that determine a satellite's position require several parameters characterizing the satellite's orbit, including radius, eccentricity, and orbit type. Circular orbits provide uniform angular velocity. A time-position solution is a straightforward calculation. All other orbits may be defined as conic sections with non-zero values of eccentricity.
A computer program may execute a sequence of calculations to approximate the time-position relationships of satellites by incorporating a parameter called the "eccentric anomaly." Numerical methods (e.g., the Newton-Raphson method of successive approximations) are required to converge on a solution. To determine a satellite's coordinates at any given time requires substantial computational capacity. The computational demands become overwhelming when orbital data from hundreds or thousands of satellites must be computed to ensure a safe trajectory for a satellite.
Thus, it would be an advancement in the art to provide a faster, reliable, sifficiently accurate method for determining satellite position. More efficient convergence would reduce processing time.